


running through woodland

by Rynezion



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: But mostly fluff, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, magical au, tsukkiyamayachi, very soft and contemplative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynezion/pseuds/Rynezion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kei likes quiet. Hitoka is not very good at magic, but she grows leaves and skin anyway. Tadashi carries much more on his shoulders than his two swords, but it's all okay nevertheless.</p><p>They fall into place like the way trees shed their leaves, one by one, slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	running through woodland

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble series I started partly to start practicing writing again (writing in English of all things, terrifying) 
> 
> The magical au is entirely Daniela's fault, as is this series. 
> 
> Title is from Running Through Woodland by Message to Bears.
> 
> Feedback is much appreciated.

It’s afternoon and the sun is hanging low, half-hidden between the houses and windows of the Oldtown. (It’s not even a town really, Kei thinks, with the market, the smithy, several small shrines and his tiny shop, the inn just around the corner. A village. Cobblestone streets and wooden framed windows. Chicken feathers everywhere.)

He wades through the neatly stacked rows of books, to the left, where he keeps his maps, journals and his desk. Fine dust is dancing in the low sunlight – Kei squints and supposes it has been over a week since he properly scrubbed the place. Might as well do it today. It’s not like the library is full of people in harvest season.

It’s fitting how Hitoka choses this exact moment to barge through the door, escorted by the sound of chimes clinking cheerfully (he’s ought to get rid of relics his brother left here now, really), scrambling to find her footing after bumping into a stack of old books about home remedies and recipes.

“Ah, Kei-kun”, she says with a nervous smile, a smudge of dirt on her left cheek and a covered plate in her hands. Kei pats his pockets for a handkerchief.

“Did you just come from Sugawara-san?”

“Ah, yes…!” Hitoka taps her face and squeaks, quietly, accepting Kei’s handkerchief to furiously start rubbing at the spot. She has that glow around her, that faint electricity that comes straight after using magic, metallic tasting, but also sweet like apple flowers.

Hitoka always smells like apple flowers, Kei thinks, tentatively.

He listens to her talking about small things – Suga’s health, the new baby that was born two houses down, the new smith’s leaking roof. For someone who has a knack for twisting and turning metal the way Asahi does, he is surprisingly bad at household jobs like that.

Kei shifts, just a small movement, and suddenly there is quiet.

“He’s due back today”, Hitoka says quietly.

“Yeah.”

Tadashi’s absence looms between them like something dark and heavy, like an old blanket thrown in the corner, forgotten. It’s awkward. It’s always a bit awkward, without him. Kei thinks about the way Tadashi sits between them like a thread holding together the pages of a book, quiet, warm, steady. He thinks about the way he shoulders the responsibility of being this dusty town’s guardian, with the same practiced ease he carries his two swords in their straps on his back.

(Not that easy, he thinks, he’s seen him bare and counted all the scars he collected through the years. Not that easy, remembering Hitoka’s trembling hands and shaky voice – even though she has a way for growing things, it’s not the kind that mends bones and skin.

She has a way for mending souls though, Kei thinks. _Pathetic_.)

“I was wondering”, she starts, placing the plate carefully on the desk, “I was w-wondering if you wanted to close the house and. And come home. With me. I mean, for when Tadashi…”

When Tadashi comes home. However that might be. He always goes to the house in the Orchard first, either to get his wounds checked, or to see if Hitoka is okay. To tell her he is home, he is okay.

He comes to him second, poking his head around the corner of the bookshelf he keeps his bestiaries, grinning cheekily so his freckles dance on his round face. He smells like herbal tea – her tea – and dust and sweat, and he hugs Kei whether he likes it or not.

He always pretends he doesn’t.

Why does this leave his heart raw, he stopped wondering.

There is a ghost of soft fingers on his chest, and Hitoka grins up at him with a sort of crooked smile Kei knows all too well.

“He is good at his job and he will come back. You know that, right? Kei?”

He nods, his left hand briefly brushes over her knuckles before she turns awkwardly, chatting loud and nonchalant about something Tanaka said to her when she stopped by the inn. Her airy laugh is strange, full of waiting and determination.

Kei slings his cloak around his shoulders and pads out of the house after her.

 

***

 

The back of September always brings chill and rain, colds of a different kind – harvest time bundled up in scarves and getting rid of the small fae-creature infestations in the damp corners of gardens and crop fields. Kei wonders if Tadashi will rope him into helping out at the apple orchard again. Last year was a messy ordeal with mud at all the places not comfortable, lifting heavy crates and avoiding the noisy crowd that somehow found its way up the hill with one excuse or another. Hitoka stood in her doorway, red faced, after profusely refusing all the help offered the past week, just for half the village ending up at her property anyway.

He remembers the piles of food Ennoshita sent up from the inn, the soft, hazy glow of the early autumn sun and the way Tadashi ruffled Hitoka’s hair while looking at _him_ , smiling.

He wonders if they fall asleep in Hitoka’s living room again, tangled up on the carpet under piles of blankets and pillows god knows where the two of them dug out from.

 

 

***

 

It’s getting late and Hitoka grows antsy, pacing to the kitchen and back, glancing at the window when she thinks Kei can’t see. He watches the nervousness creeping up on her spine like a trail of insects, crawling, and suppresses the urge to get up and envelope her in a hug – that’s Tadashi’s territory. His hugs are too stiff and self-conscious to offer real comfort, so he only catches her hand in his for a second, looking at her in a way he hopes resembles Tadashi’s reassuring smile. Hitoka hiccups, cheeks blushing a deep red before she flees to the kitchen again.

Kei sighs.

Getting up is slow, his legs aching more with the cold season just around the corner, and he hisses as he gingerly makes his way to the arch that separates the sitting room from the kitchen. He leans on the doorframe, hands absentmindedly trailing the base of his hips for comfort, mind elsewhere – he watches as Hitoka strokes the overgrown mint plant slowly, coaxing new, fresh leaves just at the top out to the fresh air. The sharp taste of magic is everywhere, but it doesn’t scare Kei anymore. He clears his throat as he slowly moves behind her, burying his nose in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of apple flowers and soap, the constant sense of _greenery_ and _growing_ that gets so overwhelming around her. She laughs, airily, nervousness fading into the kind of soft contentment Kei has envied from afar for so long.

The easiness of how she and Tadashi clicked never failed to amaze him, despite the devastating feeling of being _the one left out_. (Turns out he was wrong about that, after all.) It took Hitoka a long time to approach him with the same ease she moves around Tadashi – she has always respected his boundaries, his deep fears and walls he’s built for a long time.

Touching is hard.

But Hitoka’s neck is soft, and her hips are just at the right place to rest his hand on, and her voice is smooth and comforting in a way he needs so greatly sometimes.

It’s easy, like this. They get difficult and flustered around each other, but this is easy, leaning against the kitchen table with the metallic taste of _things being called_ all around them, tiles cool under their socked feet.

Then there is a soft noise, feet shuffling on wooden floors and a tired sight, and suddenly Tadashi is there, watching them from the doorway with a soft smile on his face.

Hitoka accidentally elbows Kei in the stomach in her hurry to scramble over and shriek in his ears, hands grabbing his own and pulling, pulling until they end up in a tangle of limbs and travel supplies on the floor, with Tadashi’s laughter echoing back at them from the ceiling.

 _Oh,_ Kei thinks, and wraps his arm around Hitoka’s shaking shoulders, burying his fingers in Tadashi’s scruffy hair and there is a smile on his face, hidden beneath two warm bodies, gentle.

“Welcome home”, he whispers quietly.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find many, many arts for the au on my tumblr 
> 
> http://rynezion.tumblr.com/tagged/magical+au


End file.
